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Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

More over the top actions by police who somehow believe they are above the law.

Note: The way she's holding the device and the loudness of the smash on the ground leads me to suspect it wasn't a cell phone, but as Today as reported a "camera".

That cop was out of line, imo. That said, there's an app created for just such situations called "MobileJustice" that automatically sends the video to the ACLU. But it also locates other MobileJustice app users in the area so they can record the police actions, too.

Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

Originally Posted by JasperL

That street runs both ways. It's a mistake to assume that any distrust and lack of respect between police and the community is caused by a few videos. They don't resonate with a public that otherwise has good relationships with their local police. They DO resonate and provoke backlash when those videos confirm what people already know from their own interactions with police. And I'm self aware enough that I know my own interactions as a professional white person living in the prosperous suburbs and only interacting with the police in fairly innocuous circumstances like at a ball game that my experiences are probably entirely different in kind and substance from those who live in the inner cities, and who are poor and often minority, and who are often presumed guilty, while I'm virtually always assumed to be innocent.

Same here for the most part, and I think police like everyone else - clerks, waiters, garbage men, etc. - should be treated with common courtesy. It's how civil society is expected to operate, police or not. But the police aren't in fact entitled to courtesy or respect as a condition for not mistreating those they serve. If some guy comes up to you and "disrespects" you, and you take his phone and smash it on the ground, you get arrested and maybe go to jail overnight.

That's why when people who ARE obeying the law, like this woman, have their property destroyed by those paid to enforce the law, it's entirely appropriate to criticize the police for it and hold them accountable - enforce negative consequences - for breaking the laws they're sworn to uphold.

We generally don't disagree. However, I don't come from an expectation that police are unreasonably or unnecessarily violent with members of the public just for the fun of it. When an officer becomes unreasonably or unnecessarily violent, I expect him/her to be handled accordingly through internal discipline or through the criminal or civil law. However, I also come from an expectation that the vast majority of the time the police act reasonably and necessarily when interacting with members of the public.

Where I strongly disagree with your comments is your apparent assumption that only those who are white and affluent have good relationships with police and that those who reside in inner city neighbourhoods and are minorities naturally have bad/disrespectful/distrustful relationships with police. In my view, the vast majority of minorities in inner city neighbourhoods have very good relationships with the police because in many cases they rely on the police for their safety and a semblance of normalcy in their neighbourhoods. Without them, they know they'd be living under the control of criminals and gangs. Good, honest, respectful people are in the vast majority in pretty much every neighbourhood.

"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." William F. Buckley Jr.

Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

Originally Posted by braindrain

So than she should have been arrested if she was interfering with an arrest and had her day in court. What legal authority does the police officer have to find her guilty and the punishment is he gets to break her camera. Seems to me that if she was breaking the law the footage would be used as evidence against her. Probably shouldn't have smashed it in that case.

But to be honest I have never seen the law that allows the cop to determine guilt right there in the spot.

Again....proximity is the key here....Don't want that to happen? I'd suggest you don't make yourself a pest by trying to capture your footage so close to what is happening.

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

Originally Posted by Moot

That cop was out of line, imo. That said, there's an app created for just such situations called "MobileJustice" that automatically sends the video to the ACLU. But it also locates other MobileJustice app users in the area so they can record the police actions, too.

Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

Originally Posted by ReverendHellh0und

How is it analogous? It's not even that.

He said that interacting with X is not dangerous because most of X are not dangerous. I pointed out that, when you interact with large numbers of X, the fact that only a small percentage of them are dangerous still makes it dangerous.

You tried to make the job sound far more dangeous than reality.

No, I grabbed a quick analogy. You, however, are attempting to make a statistical argument, and are attempting to apply national averages to local conditions to make the job sound significantly less dangerous than it really is.

Re: Cop snatches phone and smashes it (gets caught on video anyway)

Originally Posted by Moot

That cop was out of line, imo. That said, there's an app created for just such situations called "MobileJustice" that automatically sends the video to the ACLU. But it also locates other MobileJustice app users in the area so they can record the police actions, too.